The Jumpers
by Kevin J. Lin
Last week the Grey Labyrinth development server had a hard crash. While I was trying to bring it back to life, I encountered a problem (okay, a problem I created trying to fix another) no one should ever have to face. I had to manually set the voltage supplied to the CPU. If you have no idea what this involves, that's okay, neither did I. All you need to know is that you must set the right voltage- too much or too little and the machine won't boot (much too much and the CPU could be damaged). Doing this involves setting "jumpers", basically moving around little connectors on the motherboard opening and closing different circuits. Of course, you need a manual to do this, and I still had mine. Here's the relevant page, scanned in from the manual:
Now here's the puzzle: I knew what voltage I needed, but I still couldn't get the machine to boot after setting the jumpers. Then I noticed that the jumper configuration for the voltage I needed was wrong. What voltage did I need?
Hint: I knew nothing about CPU voltages or Motherboard configuration and was able to figure not only that the manual was wrong, but what the right settings should be.